Review: The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant

Published: 2009
Pages: 337
Series: N/A
Read: 12th-13th September 2011
Challenge: N/A
Status: Borrowed but buying
Reason I Read It: I have The Glass Demon by Helen Grant on my TBR shelf, and because of the first line of this book.

Synopsis: On the day Katharina Linden disappears, Pia is the last person to see her alive.  Terror is spreading through the town.  How could a ten-year-old girl vanish in a place where everybody knows everybody else?

Pia is determined to find out what happened to Katharina.  But then the next girl disappears...(back copy)

First Line: "My life might have been so different had I not been known as the girl whose grandmother exploded."

Review: How could I resist an opening line like that?  Although there aren't any exploding grandmothers in the book - it's more a freak accident involving hairspray and an open flame - the novel more than lives up to that first sentence.  The fact that Pia is in her late teens narrating events from her childhood allows the language and the commentary to be grown up without being ridiculous precocious.  The prose alone is a reason to read, and the plot and characterization make this an exceptionally good book.

While I enjoyed the book as a whole, possibly my favourite thing is the German folklore that pervades the story.  The tales Pia is told eventually colour not only her notions of what is happening to the vanishing girls but also her perceptions of the book's climax.  There's nothing supernatural about the girl's disappearances - there's all too human an explanation - but the ending contrives to makes events take on a folkloric quality.  Often the book feels like an extended folk tale, with the perils lurking not with the Fiery Man of the Hirnberg or in a haunted mill but in the house of someone seen every day.

Overall, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden is the perfect mix of prose, plot and folklore all seen through a child's perspective of the adult world.  There are some moments of genuine horror and an ending that isn't perfectly happy, which makes the book as a whole like a true folk tale: even if the hero wins, there isn't a guaranteed happily ever after. 

Rating: 10/10

Review: Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

Published: 2005
Pages: 336
Series: Little Blue Envelope #1
Read: December 16th 2010
Challenge: N/A
Reason I Read It: I've read several of MJ's other books.

Synopsis: When Ginny receives thirteen little blue envelopes and instructions to buy a plane ticket to London, she knows something exciting is going to happen.  What Ginny doesn't know is that she will have the adventure of her life and it will change her in more ways than one.  Life and love are waiting for her across the Atlantic, and the thirteen little blue envelopes are the key to finding them in this funny, romantic, heartbreaking novel. (from Goodreads)

First Line: "Dear Ginger, I have never been a great follower of rules."

Review: Have to confess that this was on the rapidly growing pile of books I'd started, got about fifty pages into, and then put down when I was distracted by something shiny and new.  And then I got to the fifty page mark again on this readthrough and the same thing nearly happened, but this time I managed to pinpoint the issue and it's entirely mine: it's set in London.  Daft, eh?  But I know London, I now live there, and so I was kind of going "oh, it was all new to me when it was set in New York and there's European travel on the horizon, but London?  Nothing exciting there" (even though I know that last statement is completely untrue).

Once I got past this the book picked up for me, even before Ginny set off for Europe.  And once she got to Europe I turned into a page turning loon, rushing through the remainder of the book like it was reading crack.  The book made me want to rush off to Europe (because it's right there, there's this tunnel they dug to connect us and everything), and I felt as if I was in every city that was described.  There were a few episodes of the book that I wasn't sure where they fit, even in the thematic sense, but every bit kept me reading.  Then the ending made me cry - and that's the second time an MJ book has done that to me; the other was The Key to the Golden Firebird - but wasn't so perfectly tied up in a neat little bow that it made me want to throw it across the room.  Though I am curious as to what the sequel will be about - which is what makes me want to get my grubby mitts on a copy now.

However, much as I liked it, I didn't love it the same way I love Devilish and Girl at Sea (read both of those now if you haven't).  It was an enjoyable read, but compared to those two it didn't grab me.  The romance didn't have the same effect on me as in the other two.  Basically, this book fell down for me because I read my two favourite MJs before this, which is, again, totally on me.  Definitely recommend it, but I would recommend the other two more.

Rating: 8/10

Review: The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney

Published: 2010
Pages: 332
Series: The Mockingbirds #1
Read: 7th December 2010
Challenge: N/A
Status: Owned Book
Reason I Read It: I saw it recommended/reviewed a lot online

Synopsis: Themis Academy is a quiet boarding school with an exceptional student body that the administration trusts to always behave the honorable way--the Themis Way. So when Alex is date raped during her junior year, she has two options: stay silent and hope someone helps her, or enlist the Mockingbirds--a secret society of students dedicated to righting the wrongs of their fellow peers. (from Goodreads)

First Line: "Three things I know this second: I have morning breath, I'm naked, and I'm waking up next to a boy I don't know."

Review: Started this yesterday evening on a whim and then sat up till 1am to finish it.  As I said on Twitter, it's an 'issue' book without being heavy-handed.  When I think of 'issue' books I think of the God-awful things we were forced to read at school, which taught us such wonderful things as "murder is wrong"*.  This book deals with a real issue and does it in a way that is thoughtful, sensitive and lightly done enough that someone doesn't react against the lesson.


That isn't to say that there weren't moments that were clearly - I don't want to say 'preaching' because that is wrong, but laying down a manifesto for how things should be.  For what consent is.  As Whitney puts it

If a person does not say "no" that does not mean he or she said "yes".  Silence does not equal consent.

A very important message for people to learn, along with the fact that when someone is drunk you don't take advantage.  As Whitney says in her Author's Note, she was date raped at university and this pervades the novel.  You know the way Alex is reacting is true to life, is the way you would react, including the last minute doubts about what really happened and the initial denial that anything did.  The rape scenes themselves are, naturally, horrible, and the way in which the memories slowly return during the book is powerful.  It all made me want to throw copies at teenagers and make them read it.


This possibly makes it sound like all the book is good for is a message, which is what 'issue' books are usually about.  But the characters are great, the prose fluent and engaging, and the relationship that grows up throughout the book is wonderful.  Best of all is the idea of the Mockingbirds themselves, using the message in Harper Lee to fight for good, including a trial that plays along similar lines to Tom Robinson's.  And all of this set in a boarding school with its own weird rules and regulations.  School story + To Kill A Mockingbird = I am in my own little readerly heaven.  


Rating: 8/10


* Really, teacher, and here I'd reached the age of twelve thinking it was OK to run down an old woman with a stolen scooter and then lie about it until eventually the guilt drives me mad like someone in an Edgar Allen Poe story.  For more info, see the book to which I refer - what irks me is that this guy also wrote the Beaver Towers books, which were amongst my favourites when I was younger.